In today's modern business environment primary interest is placed on providing the appropriate architectural detail for a private office. At the same time, with today's cost-conscious construction, there is a desirability to also provide the flexibility of a movable wall system for convenient and economical office reconfiguration.
Prior art techniques for constructing and erecting movable wall systems have been known for many years. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,394,443 (Guijnon, Jr.) illustrates a system for connecting a plurality of walls to form a portable building. The system relies on pairs of T-shaped connectors which mate with each other to join end sections of adjacent walls. Other methods of joining end walls through interconnecting means are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,962,133 (Kivette et al); 3,378,977 (Vervloet); 4,852,317 (Schiavello et al); and 4,481,747 (Tengesdal).
An example of a demountable interior partition system is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,251,968 [Raith et al (Raith)]. The Raith patent relates to an interior partition system for providing a wide variety of interior screens or full-height partitions while avoiding the necessity of the manufacturer and inventory of a large number of parts. Yet another example of a partition system that employs support capabilities is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,886,698 (Raith et al).
In evaluating the prior art systems, there is still a need for providing a better blending of the objectives of providing the architectural detail for a private office with the flexibility of a modular wall system. There is a desire to do this in the context of a modular non-progressive private office system that is simple to configure and possesses great visual appeal. In this context, there is also a need to make the system panels interchangeable and reusable. The present invention is directed toward filling that need.